TENSION: A KAMEN RIDER TALE
by Quekhammer
Summary: There's always a balance between good and evil.  A tug of war, if you will.  Every story has to have an end, a beginning.
1. Chapter 1

DISCLAIMER: I don't own Kamen Rider, that goes to Ishinomori Productions, yadda yadda, I'm only gonna do this once, because I don't need to do it at all.

TENSION: A KAMEN RIDER TALE

"Wake up, Mr. Riku!"

"You have to wake up!"

The young man's eyes fluttered open slowly, wincing at the harsh artificial light that shone upon him. Two silhouettes stood in that light, bathed in its repulsively clinical glow.

"Riku… I am… Riku?" he uttered, his voice soft, as though it had not spoken in years. One of the two silhouettes cried out in joy, nodding its head frantically.

"Yes!" the person said in a masculine voice. Both of them were men, the young man, Riku, deduced, judging by the squareness of their shoulders and short hair. "Your name is Hamano Riku! Do not forget that! You don't have much time before the final brainwashing begins! You have to escape!" Yanking Riku off of the cold-That's what he was feeling, cold- operating table, throwing a gown onto him.

"W-wait! What's going on?" Riku exclaimed, confused and alarmed.

"We don't have time to explain, Hamano! We have to get you out of here!" cried the second man. Riku could see them now; a short, portly man, his face greasy with sweat and tears, and a taller one with a receding hairline, his face pale as death. Hamano frowned at the second man.

"I… Where do I know you from…?" he muttered, as a loud crash was heard from behind them, causing the men to quicken their pace, dragging him to a large arch.

"We have to send him away," said the first man, chest heaving as he placed himself in front of the door.

"Of course we do! Only question is… No, I know what we'll do." The second man stepped over to the arch, pressing several buttons and entering in some sort of code, as the arch lit up, a swirling purple vortex dancing chaotically within its boundaries. "Hamano, step through here, quickly. It will take you to the place you need to be, but you have to hurry. Everything that happens after depends on you… And the Kamen Riders." Riku's eyes widened as the term brought image after image, fact after fact, to his mind, unbidden, for just the briefest of moments before fading away.

"Wha… Who are-" Riku was cut off as a powerful impact sent the first man flying into the arch. Screaming, he disintegrated immediately in the brilliant purple light. Riku looked at the grisly display, horrified. "You want me to step into that?" he cried at his remaining savior, before looking over at the first man's assailant. A titanic humanoid figure stood in the doorway, its features save for a pair of glowing red eyes obscured by the glare. The thing's arms were grotesquely massive, especially in the forearms, resembling the limbs of some huge ape. Its frame was tall and slender, making its arms seem even larger. Some sort of fur covered its body, as if it were some sasquatch-like beast.

"Give… Tension…" The thing uttered, its voice guttural and painful to hear. Riku stepped back, horrified. The man noticed this, and pushed him towards the arch.

"You're made of sturdier stuff then he was; trust me, we made sure of it. Now, you have to escape. Would you rather be with that thing?" The man's panicked expression told Riku everything he needed to know. Gulping, he ran towards the purple light, looking back for only a minute to see another figure drop down from the ceiling, standing between the monster and the man…

And then darkness.

And then light.

Oh, the light, the glow. He saw things in that glow. He saw multiple suns around him, and in those suns he saw a great tower fall, he saw the great glowing ziggurat in the sky, saw the hundred-strong warriors take down the goliath, saw all of these things, and he wept at their glory.

And then the darkness returned.

When he awoke, he did not know how long he had slept, how long he had been out. Rising to his feet unsteadily, he looked at his surroundings. A copse of trees surrounded him, a building to his left. Getting up slowly, he began walking towards it, when an explosion tossed him back, causing him to land on his back with a grunt. Looking at the source, he looked at the source, to see two humanoids walking out of a massive blaze, their insectoid helmets keeping them safe from the blaze. Riku's eyes widened in shock as he gazed upon them.

"Double… Riders?"


	2. Chapter 2

"Double… Riders?"

The two turned immediately as Riku spoke, the eyes on their masks glowing. They started walking towards him, slowly at first, and speeding up as they got closer. Riku tried to back away, but the tree kept him from continuing, and then they were upon him. For what seemed like an eternity, there was silence, save for Riku's shallow breathing, as the two Altered-Humans looked him in the eye, not moving an inch. Finally, the red gloved one shifted, turning to his partner.

"He doesn't seem like an Altered-Human. I think he's just a normal person," he said, his voice quiet. The white-gloved Rider crossed his arms.

"I don't buy it, Ichimonji. Look at what he's wearing. Either he was kidnapped for alteration, or he already has been. This smells of a trap," he said, causing Riku to tense up. He could be in serious trouble…

"Oh, lighten up, Hongo!" Ichimonji said, laughing and patting his partner on the back. "You sound like Kotaro did in his younger days."

"Er…" muttered Riku, "do I get a say in this?" Standing up carefully, he looked at the two, before clearing his throat and starting to speak. "Kamen Rider 1, Takeshi Hongo. An altered-human created by the SHOCKER organization as the first of a new breed of super-soldier. Escaped, and fought against them, eschewing the codename "Hopper" that was given to you for the name Kamen Rider."

Riku blinked. Where had [i]that[/i] come from? The Riders seemed equally surprised, judging by their immediate shift to a combat pose.

"How do you know so much about me, kid? Who are you?" Hongo asked, voice sharp.

"I don't know!" cried Riku, waving his hands frantically. "I just said it without thinking!"

Before Riku could be interrogated further, Hongo was suddenly flung back by a spray of quills, piercing his armor in some places and causing him to yell in pain. Ichimonji turned around instantly, taking up a combat stance in the direction the quills had come from.

"Gyee hee hee… What luck!" cried a voice from the ruins of the base. "I come here to examine a destroyed base, and what do I find but 2 Kamen Riders and a baby _Kaizo-Ningen_! It will be good to pull you all back into the darkness…"

"Come out, you coward! Who are you?" Ichimonji roared into the ruins, narrowly dodging another volley of quills.

"Gyee hee! Why should I, Rider 2? Your partner is down now, and you'll soon follow him. After all, "Power" is nothing without "Technique"!" Riku could see Ichimonji tense up in rage.

"Don't let yourself get baited by him, Ichimonji! He's trying to make you mad, trying to get you to make a mistake!" he called out, trying to calm the cyborg hero down.

"The kid's right, Ichimonji! This guy is a coward, hiding like this! He just wants to throw you off!" said Hongo, pulling a spike out of his side and tossing it to the ground.

"Gyee hee! Big words, considering you're both incapable of fighting! And you, Rider 1, had better be careful! The poison in my quills will keep you from interfering, until I have you all subdued and can take you for brainwashing!" Ichimonji growled at the hidden monster's taunts.

"Brainwashing for who? Who do you work for?" he roared at the hidden foe, receiving only cackling in response. Meanwhile, Riku had picked up one of the quills, and was examining it. The monster had not been lying; the quills were indeed poisoned, the viscous liquid dripping from the tip.

"These quills…" he muttered, his eyes clouding up as a memory came, unbidden, to his mind, "belong to Hedgehogroid, a Combat-Roid created by the Badan Empire. His human identity is the Badan scientist known only as "Needle," and his quills contain a powerful paralytic agent that is capable of stopping a normal human's heart from beating in 30 seconds flat if the antidote is not taken right away. Said antidote is remarkably easy to come by, though no knowledge of it existed when Hedgehogroid was first created. It is simple oak tree sap." Riku's eyes unclouded as he finished speaking, looking up quickly. "…I'll find some tree sap! Just keep Hedgehogroid busy!" he yelled as he got up to run away.

"Oh no you don't!" roared Hedgehogroid, running out of the ruins to strike him and Ichimonji with a volley of quills. Riku fell hard as he was hit in the arm, cursing in pain. The monstrous cyborg began plodding towards them, now in no hurry since his quarry was immobilized. "It appears that these Neo-Shocker remnants were creating a living database. You'll be far more useful in _our_ hands, boy."

"But Badan is gone!" cried Ichimonji. "Who are you working for?"

"Gyee hee hee!" cackled Hedgehogroid. "It doesn't matter! You'll know who we are once you are part of us!" Riku's breathing became shallow as the monster approached. "Oh?" he muttered, amused. "It looks like your surgery wasn't done, boy. Guess you can't survive my poison. Ah, well. It is a shame to lose something as intriguing as you, but capturing Riders 1 and 2 more than make up for you. Farewell, boy." Riku's eyes were darkening, his breath getting shallower and shallower. "N…No…"

A beat.

A beat.

And then he stood.

"Gyee… How?" Hedgehogroid said, stepping back. "How could you fight off my poison?"

Riku stood there, eyes dull. A large belt appeared on his waist, two handles coming out of a dome, a clear window in the center. Putting his hands on the handles, he yanked them out, chains attached to them pulling out as he did. Slamming the handles into two holsters on the sides of the belt.

"HENSHIN!"

A brilliant light came from behind the window, blinding Hongo, Ichimonji, and Hedgehogroid. When the light faded, A tall figure was standing there. The armor around him was inherently familiar to any monster, as was the mask. The compound eye design was partially obscured by the antennae coming from the bottom of the mask upwards, but the resemblance was obvious.

"A Kamen Rider?" screeched Hedgehogroid. Riku looked at his hands.

"I'm a… Kamen Rider?"


	3. Chapter 3

"I'm a… Kamen Rider?"

Riku looked at the copper-colored gloves covering his hands, mystified. "This is me?" he asked himself.

"So you're a Rider!" screeched Hedgehogroid, growing a giant spike and pulling it out to use as a lance. "I can't let you go now!"

"You weren't planning to let me go to begin with!" yelled Riku in protest, backing away.

"Gyee-hee! Who cares!" said Hedgehogroid, jumping at him with a yowl. In one brief moment, Riku's instincts took over, and he ducked under the flying monster, punching him in the gut and rolling away.

"Holy… How did I pull _that_ off?" he muttered as he ran to a safer area. Meanwhile, Hongo and Ichimonji watched the fight between the two with growing interest.

"He looks like a Rider. Fights like one, too," said Ichimonji approvingly.

"Doesn't matter," muttered Hongo. "He's no Rider yet. He has to earn the title, same as Tsukuba, Murasame, and the others. Now watch; let's see what this boy can do."

Riku continued to bob and weave, narrowly dodging as many of Hedgehogroid's thrusts as possible, but the battle was in the more experienced monster's favor, and he was steadily gaining ground.

"Shame you had me as your first opponent, little Rider. I'll be sure to make your death as painful as possible!" Hedgehogroid said as he stabbed Riku, piercing his shoulder. The Rider cried out in pain, falling to the ground. "Don't try and pull this spike out," proclaimed Hedgehogroid triumphantly. "Once it pierces you, there is no way to pull it out until it completely goes through you. Now, prepare to die and be reborn as part of our glorious organization!"

"I said no!" roared Riku, kicking Hedgehogroid away, and pushing the spike lance through his shoulder until it popped out the other side. "Grr… It doesn't matter whether it hurts or not! I have a whole life, one that could have been good or bad, behind me. I can't die or anything like that until I can remember it!" Standing up, he moved into a Taekwondo-style back stance, his back foot starting to glow in rainbow hues.

"Is that…?" muttered Hongo. Ichimonji let out a small chuckle.

"Maybe he's more of a Rider than we thought, Hongo," he said jovially. Hedgehogroid, incensed by Riku's actions, let out a roar and charged at him, growing a new lance out of his back and thrusting at him.

"Rot in hell, Kamen Rider!" he roared. Riku raised his back leg, the glow intensifying.

"Tension KICK!" he bellowed, bringing the glowing foot down onto the monster in an axe kick, and turning away. "I'll meet you there, monster." Hedgehogroid raised a hand to respond, but suddenly let out an inhuman scream as his body split down the middle, glowing brightly, and exploding violently. Riku was thrown into a tree by the force of the explosion, and Hongo and Ichimonji were also flung away. As Riku's head impacted with hard wood, he felt the familiar embrace of unconsciousness wrap him up and take him into the blackness.

When Riku woke up, he was back to normal. No helmet, no gloves, only the hospital gown he had worn before, now filthy from dirt and soot. Getting up slowly, he glanced at his shoulder, where Hedgehogroid had pierced it.

"Nothing…" he mumbled, still slightly dizzy. He had seen the lance go through his shoulder, had felt the pain. How was it that all that was gone entirely, that he didn't even have a bruise?

"A little help, newbie?" came Ichimonji's voice from behind him. Riku turned to see the two Riders sprawled on the ground, still paralyzed.

"Oh!" exclaimed Riku, suddenly embarrassed. Scooping together some sap from the broken tree trunks, Riku approached the Riders, to help them up. "I'll have to take off your helmets to feed it to you," he said quietly.

"Then do it," said Hongo. "You already know who we are, clearly. Just hurry up." Riku nodded and complied, carefully removing the helmets from the two cyborgs and dripping the sap into their mouths. A few moments later, the two were up again, stretching.

"Glad Shigeru wasn't here to see that," said Ichimonji jokingly. "We'd never see the end of it. Thanks for the help, kid. Kamen Rider 2, Hayato Ichimonji. What's your name?"

"I'm Hamano Riku, sir," Riku said respectfully, bowing.

"And your other name? Your alter-ego?" Hongo asked, his expression friendlier than before. Riku thought for a moment.

"I don't really have one, I suppose. Maybe I did once, but…" He trailed off, lost in thought.

"Isn't it Tension?" Ichimonji said. "You said 'Tension Kick' when you took down the monster.

"I did say that, didn't I?" Riku muttered, rubbing his chin. "I suppose it's Tension, then. Kamen Rider Tension."

"You're not a Rider yet, kid," said Hongo, pulling out a badge. "You have to earn the title. Why don't I call the "Judging Committee," to decide whether you deserve it?" Pressing a button on the badge, Hongo began to speak into a microphone in it.

"Calling all Riders. We meet in Shibuya in 3 days. We have a new ally."


End file.
